Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Management of National Security: Agenda for the New Government

Brig (Retd) Gurmeet Kanwal,

Visiting Fellow, VIF

The performance of the outgoing UPA-II government in managing India’s
multiple external and internal security threats and challenges was
often sub-optimal and given to knee jerk reactions. For example, the
management of border violations on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with
China and cease-fire violations on the Line of Control (LoC) with
Pakistan was marked by the lack of inter-ministerial and
inter-departmental coordination. Long-term defence planning did not get
the attention it needs. The defence budget fell to its lowest level
since the 1962 debacle. Military modernisation stagnated as major
procurement projects were delayed due to bureaucratic red tape and the
black listing of a dozen defence MNCs.

There are several steps that the new government must take urgently to
improve national security decision making and streamline the
functioning of higher defence organisations so as to better manage
national security, including planning for the neutralisation of emerging
threats and challenges.

The first and foremost item on the new government’s defence and
national security reforms agenda should be the formulation of a
comprehensive National Security Strategy (NSS), including that for
internal security. The NSS should be formulated after carrying out an
inter-departmental, inter-agency, multi-disciplinary strategic defence
review. Such a review must take the public into confidence and not be
conducted behind closed doors. Like in most other democracies, the NSS
should be signed by Prime Minister, who is the head of government,
placed on the table of Parliament and released as a public document.
Only then will various stakeholders take ownership of the strategy and
work unitedly to achieve its aims and objectives.

The armed forces are now in the second year of the 12th Defence Plan
(2012-17) and it has not yet been formally approved with full financial
backing by the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS). The government has
also not formally approved the long-term integrated perspective plan
(LTIPP 2007-22) formulated by HQ Integrated Defence Staff. Without these
essential approvals, defence procurement is being undertaken through ad
hoc annual procurement plans, rather than being based on duly
prioritised long-term plans that are designed to systematically enhance
India’s combat potential. These are serious lacunae as effective defence
planning cannot be undertaken in a policy void.

The government must commit itself to supporting long-term defence
plans or else defence modernisation will continue to lag and the growing
military capabilities gap with China’s People’s Liberation Army will
assume ominous proportions. This can be done only by reviving the
dormant National Security Council (NSC) as defence planning is in the
domain of the NSC and not the CCS, which deals with current and
near-term threats and challenges and reacts to emergent situations. The
NSC must meet regularly and devote its time and energy to deliberate
upon major issues in a holistic manner. It must be remembered that while
intentions can change overnight, force structures take decades to
create and stabilise. As a Naval Chief had famously told a Defence
Secretary at the Raksha Mantri’s Weekly Meeting, it takes 10 to 15 years
to build a ship.

The inability to speedily conclude major defence contracts to enhance
national security preparedness in the face of growing threats and
challenges, exemplifies the government’s challenges in grappling with
systemic flaws in the procurement procedures and processes. Despite
having formulated the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) and the
Defence Production Policy (DPrP), the government has been unable to
reduce bureaucratic red tape and defence modernisation continues to
stagnate. It is difficult to understand why the budgetary allocations
earmarked on the capital account for the modernisation of the armed
forces should continue to be surrendered year after year with complete
lack of accountability. The year FY 2010-11 had brought some encouraging
news as the Ministry of Defence (MoD) managed to fully utilise all the
funds that were allocated on the capital account. This should become the
norm rather than the exception.

While internal security challenges are gradually gaining prominence,
preparations for conventional conflict must not be neglected. Major
defence procurement decisions must be made quickly. The Army is still
without towed and self-propelled 155 mm howitzers for the plains and the
mountains and urgently needs new utility helicopters, anti-tank guided
missiles (ATGMs) as also to weapons and equipment for counter-insurgency
operations. The navy waited for long for INS Vikramaditya (Admiral
Gorshkov) aircraft carrier, which has been refurbished in a Russian
shipyard at exorbitant cost and with operationally unacceptable time
overruns. Construction of the indigenous air defence ship has also been
delayed.

The plans of the air force to acquire 126 multi-mission, medium-range
combat aircraft in order to maintain its edge over the regional air
forces is stuck in the procurement quagmire, even as the indigenous LCA
project continues to lag inordinately behind schedule. All three
Services need a large number of light and medium lift helicopters.
India’s nuclear forces require the Agni-III missile and nuclear-powered
submarines with suitable ballistic missiles to acquire genuine deterrent
capability. The armed forces do not have a truly integrated C4I2SR
system for network-centric warfare, which will allow them to synergise
their combat capabilities and defend against cyber-attacks. The approach
followed is still a platform-centric one despite the demonstrated
advantages of switching to a network-centric approach.

All of these high-priority acquisitions will require extensive
budgetary support. With the defence budget languishing at less than 2.0
per cent of India’s GDP – the interim budget for 2014-15 is pegged at
1.74 per cent of the projected GDP – it will not be possible for the
armed forces to undertake any meaningful modernisation. (China spends
3.5 per cent of its GDP on defence and Pakistan 4.5 per cent.) The funds
available on the capital account at present are inadequate to suffice
even for the replacement of obsolete weapons systems and obsolescent
equipment that are still in service well beyond their useful life
cycles. The Central armed police and para-military forces (CAPFs) also
need to be modernised and better trained as they are facing increasingly
greater threats while continuing to be equipped with obsolescent
weapons.

Though the UPA-II government had appointed the Naresh Chandra
Committee to take forward the process of long overdue defence reforms,
it was unable to implement any of the recommendations of the committee.
The incoming government must immediately appoint a Chief of Defence
Staff (CDS) or a permanent Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee to
provide single-point advice to the CCS on military matters and to
synergise operational plans as well as capital acquisitions. The logical
next step would be to constitute tri-Service integrated theatre
commands to synergise the capabilities of individual Services.It is also
necessary to sanction the raising of the Aerospace, Cyber and Special
Forces commands to deal with emerging challenges.

Any further dithering on these key structural reforms in higher
defence management on the grounds of the lack of political consensus and
the inability of the armed forces to agree on the issue will be
extremely detrimental to India’s national security interests in the
light of the dangerous developments taking place in India’s
neighbourhood. International experience shows that such reform has to be
imposed from the top down and can never work if the government keeps
waiting for it to come about from the bottom up.